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LIVE Political Call-In 215-TOPTALKMon, 19 Nov 2018 18:21:31 +0000en-UShourly1http://redstatetalkradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/cropped-rstr-microphone-32x32.pngRed State Talk Radiohttp://redstatetalkradio.com
3232Now that Kavanaugh is Confirmed, when will the Left Stop Crying?http://redstatetalkradio.com/now-that-kavanaugh-is-confirmed-when-will-the-left-stop-crying/
Mon, 08 Oct 2018 12:22:42 +0000http://redstatetalkradio.com/?p=127903

The carnival side show is finally over. Judge Brett Kavanaugh 53 was confirmed as the 114th Supreme Court justice in a 50-48 vote on Saturday October 6, 2018. The confirmation of Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s second Supreme Court appointment, is an example of why Washington is called the swamp. Kavanaugh, a graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School who has had a distinguished record as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia for over 12 years and has also served as White House Staff Secretary under President George W. Bush, has been figuratively dragged through the mud ever since his nomination was announced on July 8.

First, Kavanaugh was treated to a confirmation process which was more reminiscent of a circus than a coordinated, comprehensive interview for the highest court in the land with 1278 written questions, incessant interruptions from Democrat senators, costumed protesters, over 70 arrests, and Spartacus moments. When this calculated attempt to delay and derail his nomination until after the mid-term elections failed, the left got their hands even dirtier. Out of the woodworks came Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, 51, a Palo Alto University professor who accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a party in Maryland when she was fifteen and he was seventeen. Ford’s accusation was swiftly followed by one from Deborah Ramirez, who claimed that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her while they were freshman at Yale, and an accusation from Julie Swetnick, who graduated from a Maryland public school three years before Kavanaugh graduated from Georgetown Prep, who claimed that Kavanaugh was spiking drinks into order to gangbang women at parties back in the 1980s. While none of these allegations could be corroborated, the Senate Judiciary Committee still agreed to conduct a hearing where both Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh provided testimonies. And while Dr. Ford expressed herself well and her emotional fragility and pain were clearly palpable, her testimony failed to substantiate her accusations. Although, Kavanaugh delivered a passionate denial of the allegations and a defense of his record and his character, the Senate Judiciary Committee caved in to the pressure of some of its politically motivated members, the #MeToo movement and the left stream media and agreed to a thorough FBI investigation of the accusation.

The 45-page FBI report ultimately had no smoking gun. In fact, nothing surfaced in the FBI investigation (Kavanaugh’s seventh one) to disqualify him from serving on the Supreme Court. On Friday October 5, the Senate agreed to a cloture vote on the nomination and received enough votes to progress to the final vote on Saturday where Kavanaugh was confirmed 50-48 largely on partisan lines. Republican Susan Collins cast the deciding vote with her passionate speech where she spoke of the importance of the presumption of innocence. “ In evaluating any given claim of misconduct, we will be ill served in the long republic if we abandon the presumption of innocence and fairness tempting though it may be.” Collins added “ We must always remember that it is when passions are most inflamed that fairness if most in jeopardy.”

Yet disregarding the presumption of innocence is exactly what some members of the Senate from both the left and the right, the media and the #MeToo movement did.

Mitch McConnell summed up the situation well in his speech which proceeded the official vote:

“A vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh today is a vote to end this brief, dark chapter in the Senate’s history and turn the page toward a brighter tomorrow,”

Hopefully McConnell’s Senate colleagues will take his words as the rebuke for which it was intended and exhibit better behavior going forward so that no other nominee is ever subjected to such a witch hunt and public disrespect and disparagement. Even when the confirmation vote was taking place, the galley protesters refused to be silent despite multiple requests from the chamber officials.

We also have other examples of non-acceptance from prominent Democrats such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who has asked for a public release of the FBI report. In addition, former Attorney General Eric Holder questioned the impact of the Kavanaugh appointment on the Supreme Court’s legitimacy in a tweet.

“With the confirmation of Kavanaugh and the process which led to it, (and the treatment of Merrick Garland), the legitimacy of the Supreme Court can justifiably be questioned. The Court must now prove – through its work – that it is worthy of the nation’s trust.”

Seriously? Judge Brett Kavanaugh who was sworn in Saturday by both Chief Justice John Roberts and his mentor former Justice Anthony Kennedy, the justice he is replacing, demonstrated that he has not only the judicial temperament but also the stamina to serve on the Supreme Court.

On Tuesday October 9, Judge Kavanaugh will officially take his place as the 9th justice on the Supreme Court. Hopefully, the left can move past questioning the legitimacy of his confirmation so that the Court can focus its efforts on the important cases which await them. But then again, wouldn’t it be nice if the left and the never Trumpers would also use this occasion to accept the results of the November 2016 presidential election and stop trying to undermine the legitimacy of President Trump?. After all isn’t that what the attack on Kavanaugh was all along, just another attack on Trump?

]]>The Kavanaugh Confirmation: Is this the End of the Beginning?http://redstatetalkradio.com/the-kavanaugh-confirmation-is-this-the-end-of-the-beginning/
Sun, 30 Sep 2018 22:02:45 +0000http://redstatetalkradio.com/?p=127294

Winston Churchill once said “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Those famous words aptly describe the present status of the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh. For the past few weeks, Judge Kavanaugh, who has had a distinguished career as a federal judge as his evidenced by his copious judicial record which includes over 300 published opinions, has been subjected to a cavity exam the likes of which Washington has never seen. Not only did he have to endure over 1200 questions from The Senate Judiciary Committee more than any other Supreme Court nominee in history, his hearing was more reminiscent of a circus than a thorough thoughtful vetting process, with incessant interruptions and delay tactics from Democrat senators, protesters dressed in garb from The Handmaid’s Tale, arrests and Spartacus moments. And just when we thought that the sideshow was over, we learned of one more act. Enter Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a 51 year old Palo Alto University professor who claims that Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a pool party in Maryland circa 1982 when she was fifteen and he was 17.

Ford claims that the only thing which saved her from rape was Kavanaugh’s extremely intoxicated state. However, she does not remember when the party took place, the location or how she got home. Yet she is sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was Brett Kavanaugh who assaulted her 36 years ago and she kept this secret to herself for many years because she did not want her parents to know that she was at party with boys drinking. As we know now, Ford initially wrote a letter describing her accusation to Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California), a ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who literally sat on Ford’s letter until a redacted version was leaked to the media around September 15. Kavanaugh has categorically denied these accusations and none of the witnesses who Ford identified have corroborated her account of the events. Yet that did not stop Senate Democrats including Chuck Schumer (NY), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Mazie Hirono (Hawaii), Richard Blumenthal (CT) and others for immediately believing her story and casting aspersions against Kavanaugh.

Some additional accusers came out of the woodworks including Deborah Ramirez, a Yale classmate of Kavanaugh who told The New Yorker” that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at party at Yale during their freshman year. The New Yorker’s Pulitzer Prize winning writer Ronan Farrow did not bother obtaining corroboration of her story before publishing it. A few other women also came forward including Julie Swetnick a woman who graduated from a Maryland public school three years prior to Kavanaugh’s graduation from Georgetown Prep. Swetnick claims that Kavanaugh was spiking drinks at parties where girls were being gang banged back in the 1980’s. Swetnick who claims to be have been a victim of a gang bang attempt at a party proceeded to attend 9 more of said parties. Oh and guess who her attorney is? None other than Michael Avenatti, AKA porn star Stormy Daniels’s attorney. Once again, Swetnick’s accusation was also printed without being corroborated. Ms. Swetnick’s credibility has already been challenged by a past boyfriend who said that he had to take a restraining order out against her. Nevertheless the liberal media took the bait, hook line and sinker and went into Kavanaugh character assassination overdrive including describing him as a sexual predator. The situation was so out of control that Kavanaugh felt that the need to tell Fox News’s Martha McCallum in a sit down interview that he was a virgin for “many years after” high school.

On Thursday September 27, Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh each testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Dr. Ford’s testimony proceeded that of Judge Kavanaugh. This much anticipated hearing was yet another sideshow with Democrats bending over backwards to give credence to the baby voiced Ford who apparently lied about her fear of flying. These same Democrats were loaded for bear against Kavanaugh with questioning moving from the ridiculous to the sublime including extensive probing of the content of Kavanaugh’s year book page and summer of 1982 calendar. Yet through it all Kavanaugh stood his ground in what could only be described as controlled emotion. He was crying yet maintaining perfect mastery of his dialogue. Kavanaugh called out the Democrats for their political partisanship. ‘This has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups,” Kavanaugh said.

Kavanaugh also said that even though his life was ruined by this experience, he would not be “intimated” nor back down. Yet as compelling as Kavanaugh was and as shaky as Ford was, the Senate Judiciary Committee decided that they need to have an FBI investigation before moving forward with the next steps in the confirmation process. Senator Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona, who is not seeking re-election apparently struck some type of backroom deal where he conveyed that he would only vote for Kavanaugh if an FBI investigation took place first. By the way, Kavanaugh has already passed six FBI background checks.

According to The New York Times, the FBI has been given a list of four witnesses to interview. Mark Judge, Leland Keyser, PJ Smyth (the three individuals who Ford identified as witnesses) and Deborah Ramirez.

Hopefully this long long preamble is almost over and that we will properly label it as a calculated effort from the left to smear Kavanaugh’s name so that the confirmation process is delayed until after the midterm elections. Let’s get this last charade over with so that we can move forward with the business of confirming this highly qualified candidate for the highest court in the land.

Christine Blasey Ford, the 51- year old Palo Alto University professor who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh 53, of sexual assault at a party in Maryland when they were both teenagers, has reportedly agreed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week. Ford said Kavanaugh put his hand over her mouth as he attempted to disrobe her. She asserts that it was only because he was so drunk that she was able to escape his grip. Otherwise she would have been raped. Judge Kavanaugh has categorically denied the allegations and says that he has no recollection of the party which reportedly took place in the early 1980’s when he was 17 and Ford was 15. Ford’s accusations against Kavanaugh first surfaced in July when she sent a letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California), a ranking member of The Senate Judiciary Committee. For reasons that have not yet been disclosed, Senator Feinstein withheld the letter from the Senate Judiciary Committee and consequently Ford’s unsubstantiated accusations were not addressed in either the public or the private questioning of Kavanaugh. The letter which was leaked to the media last week simultaneously catapulted Christine Blasey Ford from anonymity to the top of google search hierarchy and instantly divided the country into instant #MeToo believers and cautious sceptics.

While I do not wish to trivialize Dr. Ford’s accusation and I firmly believe that she has a right to be heard, we should not just blindly accept her blanket accusations against a man who has been nominated for the highest court in the land. Ford does not remember the year (she thinks it was circa 1982), the precise location, how she got to the party etc. Also, the four “witnesses” who Ford said were present at the party have denied knowledge of the party, Kavanaugh, his friends Mark Judge, Patrick Smyth, and Leland Ingham Keyser, a Holton-Arms classmate of Ford. There is also little evidence that Ford ever confided to anyone about this alleged encounter with Kavanaugh. She claims that she told a therapist in 2012 that she was sexually assaulted when she was a teenager. However the therapist’s notes say that four boys participated in the attack. Ford says two boys (Kavanaugh and Mark Judge) participated.

However, blind acceptance is exactly what congress, Hollywood and the #MeToo movement expect us to offer. Democrat senators including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) all say that Ford is very credible. Senator Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) went so far as to tell the “men in this country” to “Just shut up and step up. Do the right thing for a change.” In other words, men need to just believe Ford because she is a woman. And those individuals who don’t automatically believe her or want her to testify and not further delay the confirmation hearings are bullies. The #MeToo movement has made Ford their cause du jour with support from #MeToo initiator actress Alyssa Milano and actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus who is also a 1979 graduate of the Holton-Arms School. The #MeToo ladies are even writing to Ivanka Trump asking for her support. Yet where are the facts? This guilty until proven innocent movement apparently has no restrictions except where the Democrats are concerned. Where was #MeToo when Democrat Minnesota Attorney General Candidate Keith Ellison was charged with assault by a former girlfriend Karen Monahan who actually documented her abuse?

And why did Senator Dianne Feinstein sit on the letter for close to two months? Was it because she did not believe Ford? Or perhaps she did not think the teenage encounter rose to the level of a crime? What about the lie detector test? Ford supposedly did not want to speak publicly about her accusation. If that was the case, why did she take a lie detector test? Perhaps she was pressured to take the test so that Senator Feinstein could get a benchmark on her credibility. But then again if Ford truly believed that she was attacked (even if she wasn’t), it is conceivable that she would pass a lie detector test as she would not be exhibiting the physical mannerisms of someone who is consciously lying.

On another note very little media attention has been paid to a recent Fox News report concerning the cancellation of a fundraiser for Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) featuring Ford’s attorneys Debra Katz and Lisa Banks. Obviously the event was cancelled due the optics of the situation given that Katz and Banks have been all over the media supporting Ford. Leah Vukmir, Baldwin’s Republican opponent in the senate race, was quick to cry foul on Baldwin. “ Senator Baldwin, who opposed Judge Kavanaugh within 48 hours of his nomination and refused to meet with him, will be holding a political fundraiser with the lawyers of Dr. Ford who is now accusing him of sexual assault,” Vukmir said. “Baldwin and her Democrat colleagues will take advantage and fundraise off any situation — even the most egregious.”

The Baldwin fundraiser story is perhaps just a footnote in a much larger story of how the Democrats on the senate have tried to use every trick in the book to delay and derail the Kavanaugh nomination until after the midterm elections including constant interruptions, costumed protesters, arrests, and Spartacus moments. And now we have a 36 year old unsubstantiated sexual assault accusation which is impossible to prove and impossible to refute. The timing sounds more than a little politically motivated. After all, Democrats in Red states will be able to use the sexual assault allegation as their excuse for not voting for Kavanaugh which of course masks the fact that they never had any intention of voting for him in the first place. Said another way, they can reject him because of his alleged crime versus his past rulings on hot button topics like abortion.

The genie is out of the bottle. Ford must testify. The truth will prevail. Kavanaugh will ultimately be confirmed just as Justice Clarence Thomas was despite the Anita Hill allegations of sexual harassment which similarly threatened to derail his confirmation back in 1991.

As for Christine Blasey Ford, who has been so infrequently photographed that the only “contemporary” picture of her in circulation appears to be about 10 years old, I hope she is ready for the hot seat and the glare of the cameras.

Kavanaugh for his part has announced that he has a calendar from the summer of 1982 of his college visits and camp schedule that he is ready to release.

On Sunday night Ronan Farrow broke the news of another Kavanaugh accuser coming forward in The New Yorker. The woman Deborah Ramirez, a classmate of Kavanaugh’s at Yale, claims that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at party during their 1983-1984 freshman year. While no one has been able to corroborate Ms. Ramirez story, Senator Dianne Feinstein is already calling for a delay in Thursday’s hearing with Dr. Ford.

Just another delay tactic from the Democrats. The Thursday hearing with Ford needs to go forward.

“I am part of the resistance inside the Trump Administration. I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.” For the past few days, the world has been engrossed in an elaborate guessing game to unmask the author of the now infamous anonymous September 5thNY Times Op-Ed .

The mystery writer who is described as a “senior White House official” wants the “administration to succeed and think(s) that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous”, but also believes that it is his/her responsibility “to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.”

Like everyone else, I have a few theories as to the identity of the author. And while it is tempting to stipulate these names and cite the evidence for my hypotheses, I will refrain from doing so. First of all there has already been way too much speculation. Secondly, too much attention has also been paid to the individuals who have publicly declared their innocence. Let’s not forget that back in1974 Mark Felt repeatedly denied being “Deep Throat”, the source to Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their legendary reporting of corruption within the Nixon re-election campaign, commonly referred to as “Watergate”. Speaking of Bob Woodward, it is a bizarre coincidence that this anonymous op-ed would surface a few days before the release of Woodward’s latest book, Fear: Trump in the White House, on September 11 no less.

The identity of the anonymous writer will eventually be revealed because this individual clearly wants their 15 minutes of fame or else why would they have penned the op-ed in the first place? If the person truly disagrees with the president’s agenda, he should not be in his administration as his presence poses a risk to the administration’s operational efficiency, morale and potentially our national security. After all, the writer described the administration as eventually being over “one way or another”. That sounds a little like a threat to me. Secondly, this person who describes himself as being one of the “adults in the room” with the not so subtle intimation that the commander in chief is a child, obviously has an exaggerated sense of his own importance- always a recipe for disaster. Finally, this individual appears to be under the delusion that by being part of the resistance, he is “rising above politics” and “shedding labels” so that we can all unite under the only label which matters “American”. Unfortunately, his op-ed and the resistance movement behind it have had the opposite effect with the Trump haters even more enraged and the Trump supporters equally fired up to stand firmly behind their man.

Anonymous needs to stop deluding himself that he is protecting the country from a constitutional crisis by babysitting President Trump. Instead he needs to pull the rattle out of his own hand and make the adult decision to leave The White House.

Bruce Ohr made headlines this past week for his revelations during his closed door testimony with the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees. The Associated Press reported that during these hearings the thirty-year DOJ veteran revealed that GOP opposition dossier author Christopher Steele told him during a July 2016 breakfast that Russian intelligence had then presidential candidate Donald Trump “over a barrel”. Ohr is the most recent person to be on the hot seat in the Russian collusion plot to take down President Trump, an elaborate scheme which involves a broad sweeping cast of characters from the FBI, the DOJ and of course Fusion GPS, the DNC funded opposition research firm where Ohr’s wife Nellie was a contractor.

Bruce Ohr, who has been described as the “conduit” between Fusion GPS and the DOJ, was the director of the Department of Justice’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) and the fourth ranking official in the agency (prior to his recent demotion in the wake of the scandal). Ohr, who also received his law degree from Harvard,has spent the lion share of his career overseeing gang and racketeering cases including Russian organized crime. Up until a few months ago, Ohr had been enjoying a prestigious but low profile professional life. This of course begs the question. Why would he risk his long standing career and reputation to get involved in compromised opposition research? The roots of Ohr’s cross over to the dark side can be traced back to Harvard University where he first met the woman who would become his wife Nellie Hauke

Nellie Hauke Ohr received her undergraduate degree from Harvard in 1983, one year ahead of Bruce Ohr. Dr. Ohr is a fluent Russian speaker who received her Ph.D. in Russian History from Stanford in 1989. While the media has referenced her PH.D., her Russian language fluency and her experience living in the USSR, the topic of her Ph.D. thesis has received very little coverage. In February 2018, Diana West published in The American Spectator an article about Dr. Ohr’s thesis “Collective farms and Russian peasant society, 1933-1937: the stabilization of the kolkhoz order”. West defines kolkhoz as collective farm order and postulates that Ohr’s 418 page thesis reveals her to be a Stalin apologist who perceived a “silver lining after six million or more people were killed by Stalin’s state-created famine, mass deportations, and general war of “de-kulakization.”

Dr. Ohr described the purging of these individuals as representing “to some degree a center-periphery conflict in which the ‘state-building’ central government tried to bring headstrong local satraps under control.” Said another way, she perceived the systemic elimination of extraneous “headstrong” individuals as a way to re-establish stability in society. Ohr was not only a Stalin supporter, but also a proponent of eugenics. Over the course of her academic career as a professor at Vassar College and the DC based Wilson Center, she continued to promote a curriculum which borrowed elements from this thesis and advanced a Marxist philosophy and a propensity for revisionist history. In fact, at the Wilson Center, she spearheaded a project entitled “Collective farmers of Russia’s Western Region after collectivation and under German Occupation”. Dr. Ohr also continued to propagate her political ideology in her non-academic career including her involvement with The National Institute of Justice’s Expert Working Group on International Organized Crime, an alliance with representation from the FBI, DOJ, the State Department, various universities and technology companies, which dates back to 2010. Her husband Bruce Ohr and Glenn Simpson, her future associate at Fusion GPS, were among the participants.

So where does Dr. Ohr’s Ph.D. thesis intersect with her motivation to use her husband as a means to bring down President Trump? I maintain that Nellie Ohr believes and has indoctrinated others including her students, colleagues and yes, her husband to believe that anyone who is not an elitist is expendable. While President Trump grew up in a wealthy household and graduated from The University of Pennsylvania (an Ivy League institution) as did three of his children (Donald Jr., Ivanka and Tiffany. Eric graduated from Georgetown University), he is clearly not an elitist nor are the majority of his supporters (even the wealthy and/or well educated ones). Perhaps that is why Hillary Clinton famously said in 2016 that “you could put half of Donald Trump’s supporters in a “basket of deplorables” and described them as being “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamaphobic”.

Perhaps Nellie Ohr took a page from Hillary Rodham Clinton who back in May 1969 when she was a student at Wellesley College penned a senior thesis entitled “There is only the Fight: An Analysis of the Alinsky Model” and then later went on to Yale Law School where she made the acquaintance of William Jefferson Clinton, the future president who would become her vehicle to make her socialist vision a reality.

Did Nellie Hauke handpick Bruce Ohr as her “conduit” to political power in the same way that Hillary Rodham recruited Bill Clinton? Is this complex scheme to take down a president rooted in a man being seduced by a woman’s ideology? It is something to think about.

]]>Omarosa Unhingedhttp://redstatetalkradio.com/omarosa-unhinged/
Sat, 18 Aug 2018 23:07:35 +0000http://redstatetalkradio.com/?p=125330“I will not be silenced. I will not be intimidated. I’m not going to be bullied by Donald Trump,” Omarosa Manigault Newman, the former reality television star and White House staffer told The Associated Press on August 14, in response to the news that The White House is seeking legal action against her for breach of a confidentiality agreement with the release of her tell-all book Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House which details the eleven months she spent as Director of Communications for the Office of Public Liaison.

The former Apprentice contestant made headlines this week with the revelation that she had secretly taped White House Chief of Staff John Kelly firing her last December in the Situation Room. She also dropped a bombshell during her August 12 interview on Meet the Press with Chuck Todd claiming that an audiotape exists from the Apprentice days where Trump can be overheard using the “N” word. Manigault Newman described the President as a “con” and a “racist” who has been “masquerading as someone who is actually open to engaging with diverse communities.” Since the release of the Kelly tape, two additional audiotapes have also surfaced; a conversation between Manigault Newman and President Trump where he denies knowing that she had been fired and another conversation which occurred a few days after the firing where first daughter-in law Lara Trump offered Manigault Newman, a $15,000 a month consulting stint to stay with the Trump 2020 re-election campaign. These tapes are just the tip of the iceberg. The New York Times reports that approximately 200 audiotapes exist. And furthermore, Manigault Newman has told the AP that she has a stash of video, emails, text messages and other documentation which substantiate the claims in her book.

The White House quickly denounced Manigault Newman’s various allegations. President Trump dismissed her as a “crazed crying low life” and complimented General Kelly for “quickly firing that dog”. Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders described her former colleague as “a disgruntled employee”. Lara Trump who traveled with Manigault Newman during the 2016 presidential campaign decried her actions as a personal betrayal.” Woman to woman, I shared a connection with Omarosa as a friend and a campaign sister, and I am absolutely shocked and saddened by her betrayal and violation on a deeply personal level”, Ms. Trump said in a statement.

The reactions to Newman Manigault’s claims have been a mixed bag. While “Unhinged” is #2 on Amazon, no one from the right or the left is rushing to her defense. In fact, several of the sources who she has referenced as knowing about the tape where then citizen Trump reportedly uttered the “N” word have flat out denied its existence including pollster Frank Luntz, former Trump 2016 spokesperson Katrina Pierson and former Assistant to Eric Trump Lynn Patton. Furthermore “Apprentice” Executive Producer Mark Burnett has also contacted President Trump to say that the aforementioned tapes do not exist.

So while the mainstream media is now focused on a new narrative that chaos and backstabbing betrayals are to be expected when you elect a former reality television star as president, some of us are trying to get answers to more substantive questions. Why was Omarosa recording phone conversations and making videos while she was in The White House? How did she get into the Situation Room with a recording device, a circumstance which has posed tremendous risk to our national security? It has been well documented that she was fired for ethical violations which included using White House resources for her own personal gain such as renting The White House car for personal trips. There were also breaches in protocol and she apparently called in sick a lot. Was she not fully vetted before she was hired? And if she did make a policy violation, shouldn’t she have been given a warning and perhaps been sent to class in ethics? And the question of all questions, what was her job description? What were her annual performance goals? No one in The White House seemed to know what she was doing on a daily basis. Yet, she was earning $179,000 a year. She attended some meetings and the daily press briefing, but she did not appear to have a clearly delineated role with specific initiatives that she was managing. Or if she did, it wasn’t apparent to those around her, a signal that she was probably spending more time planning her wedding and pursuing other interests than serving the President’s agenda.

Manigault Newman who is frequently photographed wearing a cross is an ordained minister. One would think that as a servant of God, she would view her opportunity to serve her country by working in The White House as an incredible gift. For it is not only a coveted professional experience that very few individuals will ever have, but it is also a platform to make a positive difference in the lives of others. President Trump took a tremendous chance on Manigault Newman by not only including her on his 2016 presidential campaign, but by also offering her a position in The White House. It’s unfortunate that she squandered this opportunity of a lifetime.

The contents of Manigault Newman’s treasure trove of secret recordings and documents still remains to be seen. Did she enter her White House employ with good intentions and lose her way through a combination of ineptitude, greed and ego? Or was she an undercover disrupter all along?

“Saturday Night Live never knew my name and believe me. That’s exactly how I wanted it.” Former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino commented to Moneyish.com in September 2017. Current White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders probably wishes that she enjoyed that same level of anonymity. By contrast, Ms. Sanders is the first press secretary in history to warrant secret service protection.

Sanders spends her days literally fielding verbal assaults on not only President Donald Trump, but also herself. Recent personal attacks include being thrown out of a restaurant in Virginia and being royally roasted at the White House Correspondents Dinner where female comedian Michele Wolf insulted Sanders’s integrity and took pot shots at her appearance. Lately Sanders’s daily press briefings have become reminiscent of the Salem Witch Trials with the reporters ever anxious to hang new crimes on the President and his spokesperson. Even when President Trump has a good news story such as a GDP of 4.1% or the return of American hostages from Korea, certain members of the press persist in firing questions in search of a negative angle.

Sanders has done a remarkable job of remaining calm, cool and collected while facing a daily gaggle of reporters of which many consistently express blatant disapproval of President Trump’s policies, actions and public statements. Offender #1 is CNN’s Jim Acosta who has over the course of time turned his beef with the President into a beef with Sanders. The two have been exchanging curt communications for months now. Their prickly relationship reached a new low on Thursday when Acosta literally demanded that Sanders show that she does not agree with the President’s recent comments where he referred to the press as the “enemy of the people” by specifically stating the words “the press are not the enemy of the people”. To her credit, Sanders refused to do so and further commented that the media “including your own network said that I should be harassed as a life sentence. That I should be choked.” Sanders also made reference to how she was mistreated by a comedian hired by the media at White House Correspondent’s Dinner.

Did anyone in the media stand up for Sanders’s standing up to Acosta? Of course not. Instead, they pitted her against first daughter Ivanka Trump who in an interview with Axios on Thursday morning responded to the same question about whether the media was an enemy to the people with a firm “no”. Kurt Bardella, a former aide to Darryl Issa (R-California) in an article for NBC went so far as to say that Sanders was doing the president’s bidding for her $180,000 annual salary. So let’s get this straight, the main stream media who have treated Ivanka Trump horribly over the last year and a half are now giving her a pass because she didn’t parrot her father in one interview. But Sanders apparently will say and do anything to hold onto her paycheck. Sounds like more fake news. Sarah Huckabee Sanders deserves every penny the government is paying her.

The FBI obtained a FISA warrant in October 2016 to conduct surveillance of former advisor to President Donald Trump, Carter Page, for allegedly colluding with the Russians to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election in favor of then candidate Trump. This past June, the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) launched a campaign rebranding itself as the International House of Burgers (IHOB). What do these seemingly unrelated stories have in common? They were both hoaxes on the general public.

Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton successfully obtained and released to the public on Saturday July 21 the documentation related to the FISA warrant on Mr. Page. The 412 pages of heavily redacted documents included the initial October 2016 FISA application and three subsequent renewals to conduct surveillance of Mr. Page for allegedly “collaborating and colluding with the Russian government”. The newly released application clearly shows that the FBI and the DOJ heavily relied upon the biased Democrat-funded Steele dossier to build the case that Page coordinated with the Russian government on election-related “influence activities”. The author of the dossier, Christopher Steele, a former British spy, was referred to as “Source #1” in the FISA application.

President Trump responded to the release of the documents in a July 22 tweet.

“Congratulations to @JudicialWatch and @TomFitton on being successful in getting the Carter Page FISA documents. As usual they are ridiculously heavily redacted but confirm with little doubt that the Department of “Justice” and FBI misled the courts. Witch Hunt Rigged, a Scam!”

As for IHOP, on July 9th, the 60 year old franchise came clean, admitting that their flipping of the P to a B was just a publicity stunt to sell more burgers.

“We’re giving away 60¢ short stacks on July 17 from 7a-7p for IHOP’s 60th birthday. That’s right, IHOP! We’d never turn our back on pancakes (except for that time we faked it to promote our new burgers), the company tweeted.”

IHOP President Darren Rebelez stands behind the fabricated name change, arguing that it was a way for consumers to think of IHOP as “a player in the burger business”. And while IHOP is still waiting upon the final financial results of the promotion, the organization achieved its publicity objectives with the name change generating 30 billion impressions and sparking 20,000 articles.

However, not everyone was happy about the fake name change as is evidenced by some of the negative comments which the organization received on Twitter. Such as “International House of Betrayal”. Dan Hill the CEO of Hill Impact, an organization which studies brands described the situation in an article in USA Today

“Any marketing ploy that is based on dishonesty says something about your culture,” Hill said. “It says you care more about sales than you do integrity”

The Bible teaches us that “ill gotten-gains have no lasting value’. If the public can get this upset about a deceptive burger marketing strategy, doesn’t it stand to reason that they could get just a little worked up about a FISA warrant which was obtained based on biased, Trumped-up unsubstantiated evidence?

Former Deputy FBI Director Peter Strzok and his lover former FBI attorney Lisa Page testified before the House Judiciary Committee this week. Strzok, one of the lead investigators on the Hillary Clinton email probe, was also on the FBI’s original counterintelligence team investigating the allegations of collusion between Russia and the 2016 election of President Donald Trump. Page was briefly part of the legal team for special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russian collusion investigation. Strzok and Page made headlines last winter with the revelation that they had exchanged 50,000 texts during 2016 and 2017 on FBI issued devices which included remarks which were blatantly biased against then presidential candidate Trump. While Strzok’s July 12 testimony was televised, Page’s July 13 testimony took place behind closed door, coincidentally the same day that the Mueller investigation announced the indictment of twelve Russian nationals for interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

I am not usually prone to postulate conspiracy theories. However, there is something about the Strzok-Page romantic relationship which strains credibility. Why would two FBI employees carelessly send such a voluminous amount of incriminating texts on FBI issued devices? They clearly knew the risks of their actions.

Secondly, it is evident from the texts that Page and Strzok were concerned about coming down too hard on Hillary Clinton in the investigation. For instance, in February 2016, Page sent Strzok the following text. “One more thing: she might be our next president. The last thing you need us going in there loaded for bear. You think she’s going to remember or care that it was more doj than fbi?” It is conceivable that the two so called lovebirds fabricated their affair and then created this inventory of texts as a way to express their allegiance to Hillary Clinton and protect their professional futures.

This theory is further substantiated by a text which Page sent to Strzok in August 2016. “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it,” Strzok responded. On first blush, this text sounds like two lovers discussing their mutual hate for President Trump. However, why did Page look to have Strzok reassure her in this manner? The answer is that the two wanted to get their support for Hillary Clinton on the record so that she would remember their loyalty when she assumed the presidency.

Thirdly, both Strzok and Page are still married to their respective spouses, Melissa Hodgman, Associate Director with the SEC’s enforcement division and Joseph Burrow, a nonprofit executive. If there really was an affair, wouldn’t at least one of these couples have started initiating divorce proceedings? The answer is that the spouses were in on the plan. Consider, Strzok’s wife, Melissa Hodgman. Employed by the SEC since 2008, she was promoted to Associate Director of the Enforcement Division about a month before the 2016 presidential election. Perhaps that promotion was a quid pro quo for Strzok’s support. Back in 2016, Page’s husband was an executive with the International Student Exchange Program (ISEP). Perhaps Clinton promised Page that she would provide anonymous donations to her husband’s organization in exchange for her cooperation.

Finally, the duo appear to be engaged in opposing communications strategies. GOP house representatives found Page to be more forthcoming than Strzok. Both Representatives Mark Meadows (R-NC) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) described her as a “credible witness”. Meadows also mentioned that Page provided new information. By contrast, Strzok came across as “combative” and “smug” during his ten hour testimony. This hostile/friendly witness performance could be part of a bigger plan to obtain leniency for them both. Page returns to the House for more questioning on Monday.

Perhaps we will learn something in the next few weeks which will make Strzok and Page’s motivations crystal clear. Were they engaged in a risky careless affair or a calculated political strategy? It all remains to be seen.

President Donald Trump selected DC Circuit federal appeals court judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill the Supreme Court seat soon to be vacated by Justice Anthony Kennedy who will officially retire in July after thirty years on the court. Judge Kavanaugh, 53, previously clerked for Justice Kennedy where he worked with another Kennedy clerk, Justice Neil Gorsuch who President Trump appointed to the Supreme Court in 2017 to fill the vacancy created by the 2016 death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

“Judge Kavanaugh has impeccable credentials, unsurpassed qualifications, and a proven commitment to equal justice under the law,” Trump said during a prime-time address at The White House.

Kavanaugh, a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, has a voluminous record which includes approximately 300 opinions, legal articles and speeches which were generated during his twelve years as a federal judge. Kavanaugh was originally appointed to the appeals court by President George W. Bush for whom he previously served as White House lawyer and staff secretary. During his employment at The White House Kavanaugh met his future wife Ashley who was then employed as President Bush’s personal secretary.

As a young attorney, Judge Kavanaugh also assisted with independent counsel Ken Starr’s report about President Clinton’s affair with White House Intern Monica Lewinsky. And while Kavanaugh helped to build the case for the impeachment, he later commented that presidents should not have to deal with criminal proceedings while in office.

Justice Kennedy’s replacement is a particularly crucial role in that the Justice frequently served as the swing vote on the court. The announcement of his resignation has created additional polarization in our already highly polarized political climate. While the left was fearful that President Trump would pick a nominee who would overturn Roe Vs. Wade, the right was concerned that the President might select a nominee who was not conservative enough.

While Judge Kavanaugh is viewed as somewhat of a DC insider choice for the court, we have little indication as to how he would rule on abortion given that he has never directly ruled on an abortion case. Since abortion has become the unofficial litmus test for Justice Kennedy’s replacement, Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing is certain to include extensive questioning on this topic.